PSA: Restaurant Calorie Counts

SaraTN

I was just catching up on my reading and my Women's Health mag (Sept issue) had a little blurb in it that a study published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, reported menu items researches tested exceeded stated calorie counts by an average of 18%. It also notes that the Health Care Bill which will require posting of calorie info -- neglects to adress enforcing accuracy.

Just passing it on for those that eat out a lot so that you can make necessary adjustments in your calculations.

jimmydeanbakker

This is kind of scary since all the restaurant foods having a crazy amount of calories to begin with.

strongerthanb4

that figures! it is better to not eat out anyway (was real hard for me at first) you never know what you are getting and who's cooking it (how clean are they???) where they get the products from, or how it is prepared....butter, oil......gross gross gross!

jrich1

Same with any prepared food, the calores are an average, the same way you can cut up 1 potato, 1 carrot and 1 lb of meat and mix together and divide by 3, your calories wont be exact because you might have 12 pieces of potatos over here and only 9 over there, so the cals will be different and 18% isnt that much

ickybella

18% seems like a lot to me. If you order a meal that has 600 calories, 18% of that is 108. That's 108 calories for which you might not have room. I went out tonight and ordered a tuna steak. I very seriously doubt that the nutritional info on the website included the glob of herb butter they dumped on top of it. We just have to be careful, I guess. Thank you for the post. It's good knowledge to have.

agdeierl

I was just catching up on my reading and my Women's Health mag (Sept issue) had a little blurb in it that a study published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, reported menu items researches tested exceeded stated calorie counts by an average of 18%. It also notes that the Health Care Bill which will require posting of calorie info -- neglects to adress enforcing accuracy.

Just passing it on for those that eat out a lot so that you can make necessary adjustments in your calculations.

Well, that's really f***ing depressing. As if restaurant food stats could get any worse! Oh wait...they just did. :noway: :grumble:

KarenBorter

Thanks Sara for the heads up ... This is why I say IF you go out and don't think you can control yourself eating to ask them to pack 1/2 before they bring it to your table and bring the to go box along with your main food

dieselveins

And a lot of the restaurant food in the menu is not one portion either.. its usually 2-3 portions. Just because they come on one plate don't mean It's one portion..